The Adventures of Leo

by Joaquim Strong, age 10

“Twaben and the other TOPP members were waiting for him, all except Toitel. The TOPP organization was an organization of animals that had powers and abilities that could help them defeat animal criminals and save lives of their human companions.”

Chapter One: The Crime

Just as the sun was rising up, Leo the penguin was getting dressed to go hunt for fish at the local beach. Leo waved to the neighbors as he waddled down the snowy path. When he arrived, he waited until the fish swam up to his bait and froze them all to death. He picked up the floating fish with his net and brought them back home for his mom to cook.

“Good morning, Leo,” said Leo’s mom, Olivia.

“Morning, Mom,” responded Leo. He left the five fish on the ice counter and heard the phone ring in his room. He went in his room and picked up his phone. It was Twaben the panther.

He spent the next few minutes trying to find out whatever on earth had happened to Toitel. When he arrived, he parked his submarine and jumped out of the exit. Twaben and the other TOPP members were waiting for him, all except Toitel. The TOPP organization was an organization of animals that had powers and abilities that could help them defeat animal criminals and save lives of their human companions. The members were Twaben, the pink panther, Cory, the octopus with seven legs, Leo, the penguin, and the rogue turtle, Toitel. Their biggest enemy was WDAP, the World Domination Animal Project or Project WDAP. It was a project made by these rogue animals, seeking world domination, and so far the most dangerous project that the TOPP had to terminate. It consisted of over 17 rogue super animals that were spread along the globe, who were trying to hijack human brains using developing tech and force them all to obey the animals. The leader of WDAP was a serpent called Scar who had venom powerful enough to kill 149 humans with a single bite, instantly. Scar had over 28 confirmed murders and only sought more death. The TOPP organization had never been able to even get a speck of information about who or where this serpent called Scar lived. That’s why they feared him so much.

Twaben was doing some research about leaked WDAP info and at the same time, analyzing the newspaper that said that a savage turtle injured three humans. He thought it was Toitel because of the way the turtle looked, and Toitel wasn’t at work this day. This was strange because he was always early. Leo sat down on his desk, opened his hacking application, and started coding the millions of lines of code they needed to get a little speck of information about Project WDAP.

Hours into the coding, Cory shouted, “I got something!” from the other desk. Twaben and Leo huddled around Cory and glued their eyes onto the computer. “Do you guys remember the report papers we got from the news saying that a serpent escaped from the Bronx Zoo up in New York and killed three zookeepers?” asked Cory.

“Yeah?” responded Leo and Twaben.

“Well, read this article right here,” said Cory.

“Snakes have a genetic based venom. That means that some snakes have more powerful venom than others, not such a great amount, though. Some snakes have traces of their parents’ DNA,” the article stated.

“That means that if we got a human to consult the three dead zookeepers’ blood, they could find some venom from Scar. Then, we could study his DNA, match it with another snake, and that snake could give us who he is or at least some idea of who he is,” explained Cory.

“But how are we going to find a human who can do all this?” asked Twaben.

“Well… I have a friend who can help us with that,” said Cory.

Chapter Two: The New Friend

The group of animals got into their private jet and flew to the destination that Cory put into the autopilot. “Sooo, where exactly are we going?” asked Twaben.

“To New York City,” said Cory.

“TO THE NEW WHAT CITY?!” yelled Twaben and Leo. “YOU WANT US TO GO IN A CITY WITH 9 MILLION PEOPLE AND NOT GET FOUND?!?!” yelled Leo and Twaben again.

“No, we aren’t going to land in the middle of Times Square, guys. Don’t be ridiculous,” said Cory. “We are going to land in the Bronx Junkyard.”

“Why?” asked Leo and Twaben, confused.

“I already said I have a friend there,” said Cory, losing his patience.

“Okaaaaay… ” said Leo and Twaben, still confused. Once the plane got into view of New York City, they went into invisible mode and landed on top of a pile of junk in a massive junkyard. The doors opened, and the animals put on their spy clothing. Everyone was wearing a black outfit with golden shades. They walked around for a while, aimlessly, until Cory lifted up a can of soda and pressed a button. Suddenly, a big chunk of trash moved to the side and opened a passage into a large corridor.

Suddenly, they heard, “There is someone here!” and footsteps. They jumped into the entrance and ran. However, they forgot to close the door, and soon the humans caught up with them. The TTOP members had a good head start and had already arrived at Cory’s friend’s house, or a restaurant. When the TTOP members arrived, they found out that instead they were going to an animal restaurant.

They looked around until Cory said, “There!” and pointed to a small cat. They walked over to the cat, and while they were introducing themselves, suddenly the humans arrived.

“OH MY GOD!!” yelled the humans, holding guns.

“SAVE YOURSELVES!” yelled a rat, and then the whole restaurant broke into chaos. Humans were shooting guns, animals were throwing things at the humans, one panda jumped on top of a human, and the TTOP members were trying to escape. They crawled on the floor through animals legs and finally, they got out. They ran up the stairs, outside, and into their jet. They saw that some other humans were looking for their friends, and they had just spotted the TTOP jet. Cory pressed the “close door” button, and just before the humans got in, “DING!” the door shut close.

“Phew!” said all the animals together. They started the jet and flew back to their base in Greenland. Once they arrived, they started asking the cat questions about their human. And thanks to him, the next step was complete.

Chapter Three: The Sample

The cat told them that he didn’t hire humans to do jobs for him, but he could make a person to do his jobs. “What do you mean?” asked Leo.

“Well, I make robots,” explained the cat.

“Ohhhhh!” said Leo, understanding.

“It’ll take ten days to make a doctor,” said the cat.

Ten days later, the robot was done. The TOPP members went to take a look at the robot, and it was perfect. “This is great! Now we just need to get this to the hospital!” said Leo with excitement. They got into the jet and flew back to New York. “Okay, so I just found the hospital that the victims are staying in. The problem is that for some reason the hospital has lots and lots of cameras. But I can fix that.”

He jumped out of the jet and landed on the hospital roof. He walked up to the vent at the corner, froze a puddle of water, picked up the ice, and smashed through the vent. He opened his GPS map and found the room where the generator was stored. He crawled left and right until he found the room. There were two workers and a guard. They were looking through the cameras, laughing at funny things, and looking at cute dogs that pooped in the hospital garden. Then, the guard went to use the bathroom. Leo jumped into the room and made no sound when he landed. The workers couldn’t even notice that a penguin jumped into the room because they were laughing too hard. Leo threw an ice cube into the “power” button, and suddenly the whole hospital went black. Leo used his grappling hook to get back into the vent and to the roof where he got the robot. He went back into the vent. He followed his map until he found the room that the victim was in. He froze the floor, and one of the doctors slipped. Leo swooped him off the floor and gave him anesthesia and carried him through the vent. He got out of the vents and called Cory, so they could pick him up. Cory arrived, and they left safely.After they arrived, they started looking at what the robot could see. Everything was going smoothly. No one noticed that it was a robot. The robot made an excuse to go see the venom in the lab. He got the blood sample and went into the bathroom. He jumped into the vents and found its way into the roof. We picked him up and took the venom.

Chapter Four: The Final Battle

They brought the blood sample into the lab and found some amazing results. It turned out that the reason that Scar’s venom was so potent was because of a strange mutation. They found that a strain of DNA was rather deformed. It didn’t have a normal ASOP-13 gene or an ASIP-13 gene. Both of them were glowing, and Leo caught something in the corner of his eye. There was a strange color. It was purple and was glowing so brightly it made him blind.

“What in the world is that thing!” Leo yelled. “Nothing in the periodic table! This might be a whole new material that science had never heard of!”

They studied it for a while, until they finally found out what it was. It was an isotope of curium and was the most radioactive material on earth and the rarest. They found the isotope was growing on the DNA strands, responsible for the overpowering venom. They extracted the curium and exposed it to a rat. The rat instantly died.

The venom was understood, but now they needed to find out the parents. They ran some tests, did some research, and finally found a snake that looked like Scar.

They found where they lived, and surprisingly, they lived in a zoo near Chernobyl. “Oh! That explains the curium!” said Leo. They got in their jet and flew over to the Chernobyl area. They looked around until they managed to find a hole in the ground. “This might be a snake hole,” said Leo. “Let’s go in.”

They dropped a rock in to make sure they wouldn’t die if they jumped in, if it wasn’t that deep. They each dropped in one by one until they were all in. They turned on their headlamps and looked around. Shedded snake skin everywhere, bones, and rotten flesh. “Yep! It’s a snake house,” they said, dashing to get away from the rotting flesh. They went deeper into the cave until they got to a wall.

He turned around and saw all his friends wrapped up in snakes! The snakes tried to grab him, but he ran up the wall and jumped on top of the snake and sliced it with his blade. He grabbed his friends and ran out.

“Where do you think you are going?” said a random voice.

“Hello? Who are you?” asked Leo.

“Oh, you know who I am. Perhaps in the light you will see.” Suddenly, there was a sound of dead snake skin being ripped apart as something slithered around them. Suddenly, flames erupted from the floor and so did a giant snake with a huge fang and about 20 different animals with maces and swords. “It’s the time for the FINAL BATTLE!” said the snake.

“IT’S SCAR!” yelled Twaben. Scar lunged forward with his fang right in front of him. They all ran to the side and dodged the fang. They pulled out their weapons and started fighting the WDAP group, but soon the situation seemed bad. They were all cornered!

“Jump on Scar,” said Leo, explaining the plan to the other TOPP members.

Scar came over the cornered group. “Well, well, well, what do we have here? A painful agonizing death is what it is!” said Scar, as he lunged his fang 60 miles per hour towards the group.

“JUMP!” yelled Leo, as the fang got close. They jumped up, and Scar’s fang hit the wall, and he got stuck. “Get him!” yelled Leo. He created an ice sword and stabbed Scar right in the head.

“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” screamed Scar as he fell on the floor, and all his friends got destroyed by Twaben and Leo. They were all pinned down. Every WDAP member was pinned against the wall, including Scar.

“It’s time to end this all!” said Leo. Leo then held up both his hands. Suddenly, a huge earthquake began. Then, ice started to form on the floor. It crawled up their legs. Leo started to chant, “Summon the ice gods!” Suddenly, the WDAP members froze. They all became ice.

“THIS CANNOT BE THE END! I WILL BE BACK!” yelled Scar just before he froze and WDAP was defeated. They headed back to the lair.

Leo called his mom. “Hi, Mom. Can you pick me up? I’m really tired,” said Leo.

“Why, honey?” asked his mom.

“Well, we just defeated WDA — ”

“Really honey! Oh, we are so proud of you! We’ll pick you up soon, okay?”

“Thanks, Mom!” said Leo. He had finally done it, defeated Scar and gotten respect from his family. This was the best day of his life. Then, the world blew up.